


some corner of another world

by imagines



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adam-sympathetic, Angst, Empathy, Grief, M/M, Post-Kerberos, adam pov, emotional validation, no jealousy here, self-indulgent exploration of keith and adam's relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-01 18:23:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15779565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imagines/pseuds/imagines
Summary: In the weeks after the Kerberos disaster, only Adam and Keith understand each other. Cautiously, they reach out. (Sheith Angst WeekDay 6: Pilot Error)





	some corner of another world

Adam has attended funerals before. His line of work doesn’t come without risks: training exercises go wrong, equipment failures occur, accidents happen. Every time, it’s horrible. Every time, he aches. Every time, he wonders briefly if their missions are worth the danger, and every time he decides that it is. If he didn’t, he’d have left the Garrison years ago.

This time, walking into the chapel on a mockingly sunny Saturday morning, Adam doesn’t feel anything at all. His heart had collapsed at the news last week, and he’d cried until he couldn’t breathe. Now there’s nothing left inside him but a scraped-out crater.

Takashi’s parents are seated in the first row. After a heartbeat of uncertainty, Adam stalks to the front and sits down across the aisle from them. They do not look at him. They never have, not the way Takashi always hoped they might one day.

He keeps his eyes down. The closed, flag-draped casket offers him no consolation. Takashi isn’t here and never will be again. How is Adam supposed to say goodbye with no one to say it to?

Before the announcement of the disaster, Adam had written Takashi a letter. It probably wasn’t exactly what Takashi wanted to hear, but it did contain an apology, because whatever happened or didn’t happen between them in the future, Adam at least wanted Takashi to know he was sorry. No one’s ever going to read that letter now, and Takashi will never know. Adam almost burned the damn thing last night, but instead it’s in his pocket today. If he’s brave, if he’s strong, he’ll lay it on the casket with a red rose before they bury it. It will have to be enough.

He glances to each side. Family, friends, but..there’s something not quite right. Turning his head, he scans the chapel until he finds the missing piece. Ignoring the stares from those around him, he stands up and marches to the back of the chapel, to the shadowed corner at the end of the last row, where Keith is curled in on himself. Like he’s trying to make himself invisible; like he thinks he shouldn’t be here.

“Hey,” Adam says. If he were Takashi, he’d touch the kid’s shoulder, but Keith probably doesn’t want that from anyone else. It would be a poor replacement anyway. “Would you like to sit up front with me?”

Keith looks up at him, eyes red and swollen. His voice rasps when he speaks. “I thought that was just for family.”

Adam thinks of Takashi’s parents, who loved him yet could never quite set aside their anger. He thinks of himself, and how he loved Takashi, but not quite in the way Takashi needed. There are many ways of being someone’s family, he thinks, and neither blood nor perfection are required.

So Adam holds out a hand to Keith. “Exactly.”

* * *

Takashi loved looking at the night sky whenever he needed to relax, or think, or spend time with someone close to him. Adam’s been coming up to the roof most nights, to feel closer to the stars and to wherever Takashi lies among them. It only surprises him that it took this long to run into Keith. Not wanting to encroach on Keith’s space, he keeps his distance, sitting down a few meters away. It’s the only time they’ve been up here at the same time, and maybe it should be weird, but part of him feels relieved not to be alone. His grief haunts him, rotting away the parts of himself he most loves. There’s only one other person who might comprehend the depth and complexity of his pain.

Keith’s voice is a shock, coming quiet and gentle out of the dark. “How are you doing?”

It’s been two weeks. Adam’s given up the classes he was supposed to teach this semester. He isn’t going to class himself, either. He isn’t flying. He isn’t doing much of anything. The Garrison’s counselor tells him this is a normal response to the death of a loved one. What she can’t tell him is when it will _stop_. There’s no point in looking strong for the kid. “Bad,” Adam says. “You?”

“Bad, too.”

“Yeah.” Adam heaves a deep breath. There’s something he has barely admitted to himself, let alone anyone else. It’s probably the wrong time to say it; Keith’s probably the wrong person to say it to. But there’s never going to be a right time or a right person. “You know, we were going to break up. You’d have had a shot.”

Keith jolts upright, staring at him, horrified. “That’s not funny.”

“I’m not laughing.”

“Look, I never—we didn’t—I swear, it wasn’t like that, I’m sorry if I ever gave the impression—”

“Keith, no. You have nothing to apologize for, least of all your feelings.”

Keith wilts into himself again, and when he speaks next, his mouth is muffled against his knees. “How did you know?”

“The way you looked at him is the way I looked at him, back when we—in the beginning. God, I couldn’t take my eyes off him.”

Keith rubs at his eyes with his sleeve. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles. “I didn’t mean to.”

Adam is saying everything all wrong, probably making Keith feel like shit, but all he can do is plow forward and hope he makes it to the other side. “Takashi didn’t let many people close to him. How can I be angry at you for loving him? All I ever wanted was for him to be loved.” He’s never tried to put this in words, yet as he speaks, he knows it’s the truth.

“Did he know?” Keith whispers. “That I—”

Moments pass in silence, until Adam realizes Keith can’t, or won’t, say the words. It strikes him that both of them are too young for this; to love like this; to lose like this. “I don’t know if he guessed exactly how you felt. But he knew that you loved him. He loved you too, Keith. He’d have done anything for you.” His eyes are stinging; the stars swim and blur. Would Takashi have stayed, if Keith had asked him to? It’s a pointless question, because Keith would never have asked. And maybe Adam shouldn’t have, but the fact remains that he did, and even if he hadn’t, he’d still be mourning Takashi now. So it’s no use going down that road.

Keith is crying, trying to hide it in his hands. “I don’t know what to do without him,” he blurts out, voice wet. “I don’t know how to be without him.”

“I know,” Adam says. “Keith, I know. It’s okay.” He closes his eyes as the tears spill over. There’s nothing more that can be said.

* * *

Keith never accepts the official explanation, and Adam can only watch as the pressure builds inside him. When Keith finally erupts, screaming at Iverson and throwing the punch that gets him expelled, Adam hears people whispering that they never saw it coming. They don’t know Keith, if that’s the case.

Adam tries to put a word in for Keith, but Keith has finally gone too far and no one wants to hear it. The Garrison’s best pilot, and the best of the next generation, both gone in a matter of months: it’s enough to make the news, and it does.

Keith has been sent to pack his things, and Adam doesn’t have long. He rummages in the small wooden box on his nightstand until he finds what he’s looking for, and hurries to Keith’s room.

The door has been flung wide open, but Adam knocks on the frame anyway.

Keith whirls around, fists clenched at his sides, eyes red-rimmed. “What do you want?”

“Do you have somewhere to go?” Adam curls his hand around what’s in his pocket. It’s hard to give it up, but he thinks Keith needs it more.

“I’m eighteen, Adam. I can go anywhere I want.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Keith deflates, shoulders slumping as the rage leaves his body. “Don’t know why you’re worrying about me. But yeah, I have a place. I’ll be fine.”

“Good. I just want you to be safe.” Adam pulls his hand out of his pocket and holds it out to Keith, fingers closed tight around his gift. “This is for you. You should have something of his.”

Keith reaches out, letting Adam pour a chain and tags into his palm. He examines one tag, mouthing the name engraved there. _Takashi Shirogane._ He clutches them to his heart, face crumpling.

Adam can’t stop himself. He puts his arms around Keith’s shoulders, prepared to be shoved away, but Keith stands like a statue and lets Adam hold him until he stops shaking.

Then Keith slips out of Adam’s grasp, jaw clenched. “Thank you,” he says. “I wish I had something for you.”

But Keith has already given Adam something: the companionship of someone who understands, who feels _with_ Adam, not just _for_ him. He’s not sure how to say that, though. “Don’t worry about it,” he tells Keith instead. “Good luck out there.”

* * *

_For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come  
will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind. _

— [“In the Event of Moon Disaster”](http://https://www.archives.gov/files/presidential-libraries/events/centennials/nixon/images/exhibit/rn100-6-1-2.pdf), July 1969

 

**Author's Note:**

> writing this was incredibly soothing tbh
> 
> [here's my tumblr](https://belovedsheith.tumblr.com), come say hi!


End file.
